Best of Brian Clough

*THE DAMNED UNITED - OUT ON DVD NOW*

Brian Clough was the greatest football manager of his era, if not all time. Transforming two beleaguered clubs’s fortunes with his swaggering charisma and no-nonsense tactical nous, he took both Derby County and Nottingham Forest to domestic top-flight titles and the latter to back-to-back European Cups. His success was unparalleled, as was his natural presence and abrasive methods (he made Roy Keane shine his shoes the day he joined Forest and when Pearce was picked for England he told him he wasn’t good enough to keep his feet on the ground). In fact, there was little about Clough’s attitude to management that didn’t provoke admiration, fear or just an excellent newspaper headline. For his anecdotes alone, he was regarded as journalistic gold dust and, in both the offices of Fleet Street and the on the nation’s terraces, he was deemed to be the greatest English manager never to take charge of the national side.

Despite making enemies wherever he went and ruffling the feathers of the footballing establishment the world over, he remains one of the most revered figures in British football history. With The Damned United, the film version of his 44-day tenure at Elland Road in 1974, out 27 March, we revisit the career of Ol’ Big ’Ead.

1935

‘A little bit of paradise’

Born 21 March in Middlesbrough, the son of a sweet factory worker and the sixth of eight children.

1955

"Stand up straight, get your shoulders back and get your hair cut."

Upon completion of his spell in the RAF (where, strangely, he is never picked for the RAF National Team), Clough signs his first professional contract at his hometown club where he goes on to score 197 goals in 213 league matches. Perhaps the most important legacy of his time at ’Boro is his friendship with Peter Taylor. At the beginning Clough was largely overlooked by the ’Boro management as mouthy and impudent, explaining his status as fifth-choice striker. It was reserve goalkeeper Peter Taylor that recognised his talent, who believed in him. Taylor made no secret of it, espousing Clough’s talents to anyone who would listen, and they became utterly inseparable. Whilst other players were out on the town, they would be sat in a café or round Taylor’s house rating players and talking coaching and tactics with salt and pepper shakers. ‘You didn’t normally find many pearls in Middlesbrough. I did when I met Pete for the first time,’ Clough said later.

1962

During a collision with Bury’s goalkeeper Chris Harker whilst playing for Sunderland, Clough’s cruciate ligament is damaged beyond repair, cutting short his playing career.

1965

At only 30 years old, Clough becomes the Football League’s youngest manager when Hartlepool United offer him the top job. He appoints ‘his mate’ and the Clough-Taylor (always said in that order) “partnership” is born.

1967

Derby come calling and a lifelong affiliation with the town is born. As part of a clearout which sees all but four of the inherited team sold, Clough also gives P45s to the club secretary, head groundsman and chief scout. Two tea ladies are also sacked for daring to giggle after a defeat. Clough and Taylor sign legendary Spurs player, 34-year-old Dave Mackay, for £5,000 to be their “voice on the pitch”. It’s a move that Clough later describes as ‘like getting Laurence Olivier down the village hall to act for thirty bob’.

1969

Derby County win the Division Two title. Only a year earlier they’d finished a miserable 18th.

1972

‘We talk about it for twenty minutes and then decide I was right’

Derby win the Divison 1 title by a single point.

1973

‘Sometimes you win matches in unusual places – often before you put a foot on the field’

Clough leads Derby to the European Cup semis, where they’re knocked out 3-1 on aggregate by Juventus. Afterwards it’s alleged the West German referee had received several gifts from Juventus officials, casting the result’s legitimacy into doubt. Clough brands Juventus ‘cheating bastards’ and openly questions Italy’s courage during the Second World War.

1973

‘I had too much time to think – and not enough brain to think with’

Boardroom altercations at Derby force Clough and Taylor to resign their posts. A month later he takes over at Brighton. He wins only 12 of his 32 games in charge, including an embarrassing 4-0 defeat at home to non-league Walton & Hersham in the FA Cup.

1974

‘If the chairman sacks the manager he initially appointed, he should go as well’

Clough succeeds the legendary Don Revie as manager of Leeds Utd. At his first team meeting he tells the players to ‘chuck your medals on the table – ’cos you won ’em by cheating.’ After only 44 days in charge, Clough is sacked for alienating the club’s top players. [The Damned United, a film adaptation of David Peace’s wonderful book, documents this tumultuous 44-day period.]

1975

‘If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he’d have put grass up there’

Clough takes over at Nottingham Forest with the club languishing in 13th place in Division Two. The first buy he makes isn’t a player but a cooker. ‘The one the club had was knackered,’ he says. ‘But, frankly, I nearly picked it for the team ’cos it was better than most of the squad. We barely had a player in the first team who I thought could play. I even had to teach one of them to take a throw-in.’

One of his early games in charge is a fairly insignificant (if geographically salient) Nottinghamshire County Cup tie against Notts County. With 90 league places separating the two clubs, Forest are expected to win comfortably. They don’t, leaving an exasperated Clough to board the empty team bus and demand the driver take him back to the City Ground alone. Kit men are later spotted pushing the kit basket over the Trent Bridge, sheepishly followed by players, coaches and medical staff.

1976

Taylor leaves Brighton and joins Clough at Forest.

1977

‘I'm sure the England selectors thought if they took me on and gave me the job, I'd want to run the show. They were shrewd, because that's exactly what I would have done.’

Clough is passed over by the halfwits at Soho Square for the post of England’s “second most important job”, its football manager. He’s never interviewed for the position again.

1977/1978

‘They say Rome wasn’t built in a day. Well, I wasn’t on that particular job.’

Peter Shilton is signed from Stoke for £270,000. Clough sees it as the most significant signing of his Forest tenure. ‘It was like buying a painting, like a Constable or a Turner,’ he says. ‘You know in a year or two’s time it’s going to be worth twice what it cost you.’ Shilton lets in 18 goals in his 37 appearances and, after gaining promotion the year before, Clough’s side win the League Cup and are crowned unlikely champions of the top division, seven points clear of nearest rivals Liverpool. Clough becomes the first manager since Herbert Chapman to win the English championship with two different clubs.

1979

‘Players lose you games, not tactics. There’s so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win a game of dominoes.’

Clough signs 24-year-old Trevor Francis in British football’s first million-pound deal and the season is rounded off emphatically when they lift the European Cup for the first time in their history, Francis scoring the only goal in the 1-0 defeat of Malmo.

Forest just miss out on the Division 1 title, finishing runners up to Liverpool, but they do win the League Cup. Before their 3-2 defeat of Southampton in the final, Clough thinks his team look tense, so to help them get a good night’s sleep he assembles them in a private room in the hotel, buys a vat of champagne and tells them they’re not leaving till they’ve drunk the lot.

1980

‘I wouldn’t say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one.’

Forest achieve the unthinkable and retain their European crown against Kevin Keegan’s Hamburg side, again winning 1-0.

1980

Taylor’s biography comes out a few months after the European Cup Final victory. Taylor hasn’t mentioned this to Clough. ‘He wouldn’t have shifted a copy without my mug on the front, my name alongside it and my thoughts on every page,’ Clough spits to a local journalist. Arguments over pride and principle begin to drive a wedge between the men.

1980/1

Forest are knocked out of the European Cup at the first hurdle against CSKA Sofia. Clough arrives for the post-match press conference with some champagne announcing to the assembled press that, ‘We’d better say goodbye to it in style.’

1981

Public cracks in the partnership begin to appear. Where they were once revered for an incredible nous in the transfer market, Clough and Taylor spend £1m on Justin Fashanu, who scores five goals in 31 appearances.

1982

Taylor resigns because he is ‘mentally and physically drained’. Clough fumes when ‘his mate’ (a reference he won’t use again until Taylor dies) re-emerges back at Derby a mere 186 days later. Clough’s drinking becomes more frequent. He is often caught by staff and journalists drinking heavily at unsociable hours of the day.

1986

Clough suggests to journalists that Peter Shilton should punch Maradona as payback for the ‘Hand of God’ incident at the World Cup.

1989

His increasingly erratic and tempestuous behaviour spills out into the public domain. Clough “cuffs” Forest supporters who run onto the pitch after Forest had beaten QPR 5-2 in a League Cup match. He’s fined a paltry £5,000 and must spend the latter half of the season managing from the stands.

1990

‘I've missed him. He used to make me laugh. He was the best diffuser of a situation I have ever known. I hope he's alright.’

Peter Taylor dies very suddenly in Majorca on 4 October. They still hadn’t reconciled. When Clough was told he apparently cried heavily. He never enjoyed the same amount of managerial success without Taylor by his side.

1991

‘I think it stands for Ol Big ’Ead’

Clough receives an OBE from Her Majesty.

1992

A photographer captures Clough giving the Forest fans a V-sign during a 1-1 draw against Leeds at the City Ground.

1993

‘On occasions I have been big headed. I think most people are when they get in the limelight. I call myself Big Head just to remind myself not to be.’

After 18 seasons in charge of Forest Clough retires. With the launch of the Premier League and an ongoing battle with alcoholism, Clough finds it all too much, handing in his resignation shortly before Forest are relegated. Some believe that if Taylor had still been by his side, he would’ve realised his burgeoning inadequacies a lot sooner.

1993

Clough is heavily implicated in the “bungs” scandal engulfing the English Premier League. Tottenham Chairman Alan Sugar reveals he was advised to slip Clough illicit payments in return for him agreeing to sell the sought-after Teddy Sherringham. A tribunal charges Clough with misconduct, but drops the case due to his rapidly deteriorating health.

2003

‘Walk on water? I know most people out there will be saying that instead of walking on it, I should have taken more of it with my drinks. They are absolutely right.’

Sixty-seven-year old Clough undergoes a liver transplant, the effects of 30 years of hard drinking finally catching up with him. Doctors claim the damage was so severe that Clough came within two weeks of dying.

2004

‘When I go, God’s going to have to give up his favourite chair.’

Clough dies of stomach cancer on the 20th September 2004, at Derby City Hospital, aged 69. The world of football mourns the loss of one its great characters. A memorial service is forced to move to Derby’s home ground of Pride Park after an estimated 14,000 people pay their respects.

The cartoonist in the Daily Telegraph draws a headstone with this statement on it:

Brian Clough 1935-2004

The Greatest Manager Of All Time,

Even If I Do Say So Myself

2005

‘Don't send me flowers when I'm dead. If you like me, send them while I'm alive.’

The A52 linking Nottingham and Derby is renamed ‘Brian Clough Way’ in remembrance of ‘Ol’ Big Head’. He was further honoured in the city of Nottingham itself with the naming of a city tram ‘Brian Clough’. Later, in 2007, Derby County and Forest officials agree that any future league, cup or friendly game between the two clubs will be made a trophy fixture, The Brian Clough Trophy.